The long-running battle over the Stolichnaya vodka brand will come to a head this week as a court in the Netherlands prepares to rule on its European ownership.

Russia’s state-backed spirits maker is hoping to seize back control of the world’s fourth best-selling premium vodka from exiled Russian, Yuri Shefler. Mr Shefler acquired Stolichnaya, among 42 other brands, through his company Spirits International (SPI) for $300,000 (£227,000) in the chaos of Russia’s privatisation of state assets in the Nineties.

But Russia’s Soyuzplodoimport insists that the post-communist sale was “unlawful” and has been fighting to ­regain control of the brand since Vladimir Putin first became Russia’s President and vowed to renationalise the state’s vodka industry.

Soyuzplodoimport managed to wrest back control of the brand within Russia in 2001, before gaining control in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in 2015.

In its latest tussle with SPI it is hoping to extend this order across 13 other European countries, including the UK, which accounts for annual sales of ­between 4m and 5m bottles.

SPI has ­consistently maintained that Soyuzplodoimport’s claims “have no merit” and recently said that victory against its adversary in Brazil earlier this month.